When it comes to interpersonal Communication nothing can be more challenging when you lack self-confidence. What’s interesting about interpersonal communication is that it challenges us to face our own insecurities. Psychologically speaking we’ve heard of the term called projection. This is when someone accuses you of doing something, but they’re actually doing it to you. For example, I had a girlfriend who used to get really drunk mostly on the weekend (Thank God) and behave like a crazed person. One night when I tried to embrace her and take her home she called me a crazy monster. But nothing could have been further from the truth. She was merely projecting what she felt about herself on me.
If you lack self-confidence at a time when someone is projecting on you, then chances are you will take it personally. But on the flipside, if you know how to become confident, you will most likely not react and notice this is simply a projection from someone who is very insecure about themselves.
Of course, the big challenge here is how to improve your self-esteem and build your confidence. This is not such an easy task. The challenges lie deep within our belief systems created over decades of time where we have been conditioned to think and believe certain things based on our previous experience. Obviously, it took a long time to create negative anchors and disempowering beliefs and it will accordingly take a good chunk of time to reverse those.
Part and parcel of becoming more confident is self-love. If you think about it, when you really love yourself you won’t need to lash out against others and when someone lashes out at you, you’ll find it perplexing or perhaps even odd. One simple tool to use in building self-love is to take a few minutes to look in the mirror and tell yourself, “I love you (Your name)” over and over until it starts to resonate out of the discomfort zone and into the feel-good zone. Of course, this may sound ridiculous, but… It works! Try it and see for yourself.